Please look under my coat before she sees you!
The next few days were a blur of anger and frantic phone calls. Every attorney I contacted either wouldn’t touch Evelyn’s name with a ten-foot pole or quoted fees that made my frozen $48,000 savings account laughable. I was trapped, buried under a paper avalanche, unable to help Maya, haunted by Sarah’s murder.
I went to Sarah’s grave. It was a quiet place, shaded by an old pecan tree, a small stone marking her name and the dates that felt impossibly short. I sat on the grass, the Texas sun warm on my back, trying to gather my thoughts.
A shadow fell over me.
I looked up to see a woman standing a few feet away, her eyes shielded by large sunglasses. She wasn’t dressed for a cemetery visit; her clothes were practical, her shoulder bag looked heavy with equipment.
“Lucas Hollister?” she asked, her voice clear and direct.
I nodded slowly, my guard immediately up. Delaney’s people were everywhere.
She pushed the sunglasses up onto her head, revealing sharp, intelligent eyes. “Rachel Cross. *Austin American-Statesman*.”
My jaw tightened. “I have nothing to say to the press.”
“I’m not here for a quote, Mr. Hollister,” she countered, her voice dropping slightly, becoming conspiratorial. “I’m here because your name just popped up on a very interesting legal docket.”
She gestured vaguely. “Delaney filed an emergency ex-parte injunction against you this morning. Pretty aggressive stuff. Caught my eye because I’ve been tracking Apex Titan Security for six months now.”
My breath hitched. Apex Titan.
“What about them?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“Fraudulent county bid-rigging,” she replied, a flash of professional satisfaction in her eyes. “Specifically, a fourteen-million-dollar surveillance contract they landed from Travis County, non-bid. The numbers don’t add up. And some of their ‘tracking nodes’ keep showing up in places they shouldn’t.”
She knelt, resting her bag on the grass. “I’m auditing everything. And then your name appears, tied to Evelyn Albright-Hollister and this… Apex Titan. You’re listed as a party in a ‘corporate espionage’ suit against them.”
She pulled a small, rugged tablet from her bag. “I’ve got secure server logs. Raw data. If you’re seeing Apex Titan tech, maybe we’re looking at the same thing.”
“You don’t know about Maya,” I stated, more a question than an accusation.
Rachel shook her head. “No. I’m following a money trail, Mr. Hollister. A very crooked money trail leading from county coffers straight to private defense contractors. Your name’s just a new branch on the tree.”
She offered the tablet. “I’ve been trying to identify the specific signal frequencies these ‘tracking nodes’ are emitting. My sources are hesitant to go deep without proof. You mentioned ‘corporate espionage,’ implying you’ve seen something. If you can help me pinpoint those frequencies, I can give you everything I have on their financial dealings.”
The offer hung in the air. Evelyn’s legal team had shut me down, isolated me. Rachel Cross was a complete stranger, a journalist whose motives I barely understood.
But she was also the first person to offer a tangible path forward, a weapon against the wall Evelyn had built.
I looked at Sarah’s headstone, then back at Rachel. My wife had died chasing these shadows. Maya was living in them.
“Their headquarters,” I said, a decision solidifying in my mind. “Downtown Austin. I’ve already scanned some frequencies there.”
Rachel’s lips curved into a thin, determined smile. “Then we have a starting point.”
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